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New York City in 1993 in HD - DTheater DVHS Demo Tape

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Six minutes of street scenes from New York City in 1993, captured from a D-Theater HD DVHS demo tape that reused footage shot for the Japanese HiVision market. It shows Times Square and other sights in high-definition video.

Pointed to as striking proof of how good 1990s HD video could look, and as a window into early-90s New York.

Audio & video engineeringWorld historyInternet culture & memes#newyork#1993#d-vhs#hdvideo

5 comments from Hacker News

@Bucephalus3552018-09 · in “Street View of 1980s New York”

Apparently VHS came out with an HD format in the early 1990’s. Here’s a sample clip from 1993 of NYC: ▶ this video It’s amazing. It so...looks like today, but it’s not. I don’t know how to describe the realness of image quality that looks like it was filmed earlier this afternoon but is in fact over 20 years ago. Unsettling yet beautiful.

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@chaos_a2022-05 · in “After roasting Apple about headphone jacks, Google dumps it from Pixel 6A”

> but there are no VHS cassettes that can match the clarity of 1080p or higher. A rare VHS format from 2002 called D-VHS could do 1080p on VHS tapes. ▶ this video link

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@nebula88042022-02 · in “Quiet glimpses of the turn of the century NYC through an amateur’s camera”

Here is some HD footage of NYC in 1993...close enough: ▶ this video This was way before HD was a common tech (this was during VHS's height right?). This was a demonstration tape of JVC's commercial HD cameras played back on D-VHS which never really took off (Digital HD video on VHS) Some interesting things of note: Clear images of the Twin Towers The guy wearing an SS t-shirt trying to block the camera at 1:42 Did people have differing dental standards back then? Seems like something has changed in the culture(3:58) Camel advertisement at 4:12 And finally....Ponytail guy making a quick peek at 0:58 :)

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@romeoEtJoliet2018-01 · in “New York City in 1993 in HD – DTheater DVHS Demo Tape [video]”

Another difference to me is the lack of cabs. When comparing this shot: ▶ this video and any number of Google Maps images of the same location (looking North towards St. Patrick's) link it's striking how there are way more black cars and fewer taxis today.

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@cJ0th2016-07 · in “Japan Will Make Its Last VCR This Month”

yes and no. there is dvhs. But even though the medium looks like a standard vhs cassette it is a different technology. link Here is a video recorded on a dvhs in 1993. It aged rather well I think: ▶ this video

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